The life of a pirate is a very interesting one. Some perceive pirates of thievery, while some envy and wonder what life they truly live. Some people experience their encounters with pirates firsthand. But others only dream of what it would be like to live the life of a pirate. If you could live your life as a pirate, what would you do? Would you search for treasure or try to hide the treasure you have? Would you sail from town to town and make sure everyone knew who you were or go for being as unknown as possible? There are many possibilities of becoming a pirate when you think about it. But does the developer, Singer Studios, show us the way of the pirate? Let’s find out with The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend for the Quest 3.
The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend is a multi-award-winning narrative adventure starring Lucy Liu. Climb aboard a 19th-century Chinese pirate ship, explore moonlit cabins, unearth treasure, and embark on a journey to become the most powerful pirate of all time. Do you have what it takes to be crowned The Pirate Queen?
Before putting your boots on and embarking on your pirate journey, there are a few things that you should be aware of. First, find your favorite place and make sure you have enough arm’s length as you don’t want to hit anything or anyone. Second, make sure those Touch Plus controllers and your headset are charged. You don’t want to be in the middle of something only to have something go out on you because you forgot to charge them, do you? Third, I am not going to spoil anything for anyone. Any footage will be from early on in the game. And finally, have some fun. With all that said, let’s continue…
When you first start, it would be a good idea to go into settings to make some changes. For your movement mode, you only have teleport and direct as well as smooth rotation and the choice of having it enabled or not. The next choice you should make is if you want to play seated or standing. The choice is going to be up to you and what you feel comfortable with, but I went with seated. The other choice you will want to look into is the difficulty. There are two choices, Story Teller and Escape Room. With story teller, this is recommended for players new to VR, but you also received voiceover hints and objective markers. With the escape room, the hints and markers only occur when you ask for help. So the choice is yours. I went with the story teller mode as I do enjoy a good story telling experience. You do have two other options with Sound and Game. All the sound is up all the way by default. So depending on your experience, this may need to be adjusted, but you may want to keep voices up all the way. And then for the game, you can choose if you want subtitles on or off and Haptics to be enabled or not. The haptics are there, so you might as well use them.
Once you have everything the way you like it, it’s time to start the game. But before you do that, take a little bit of time and just look around at the detail that there is and the clouds in the sky almost preventing any light from getting through. As the game starts, you hear Cheng Shih speak to you about hearing her tale. One of the things you will notice is that you will come across scrolls that will need to be widened for some of the story to unfold for you, which is very interesting about how this was done and used to help tell the story.
As the story unfolds, you will come across some puzzles that will need to be solved. The puzzles in The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend are not too difficult, but they do add to the experience. Some puzzles feel more like an escape room, where you need to find certain items that can unlock other items to escape. If you find yourself needing help, there are voice hints that come when you need them. If you find yourself stuck, you can ring a bell to get help. Voice hints are also available to guide you through the game. You do have an inventory wheel system that really only comes to play when you need an item to use with an object, such as a key unlocking a door.
Other parts of the game have you trying to walk on boards that could break apart with your every step, to try trying to climb rope nets to get to higher parts of ships, which you may need to watch where you place your hands, and even using your boat to row between the ships and hopefully you don’t get caught. It does this all while trying to keep the narrative story going the best that it can. There are some parts will you need to move in a boat, however, you are not able to explore as you are being kept on track. So it won’t matter if you try to steer left or right, you will be moved where you need to go. There is an interesting part where you are sneaking on a ship and instead of seeing the other characters, the developer decided to go with using silhouettes to present the characters, which I do like how this was used.
Let’s talk about the graphics and sound. Being that this is the debut game from Singer Studios, they did a great job with the resources they had. The darkness of the sky with the clouds gave this you are alone type of feeling and at times, just had me enjoy the ocean. Some of the collectibles and items that you are able to pick up and examine look good, especially when in almost darkened rooms with just barely enough light reflecting off surfaces and items. This creates an eerie atmosphere that adds to the experience.
The star of The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend is the sound. Not only does the music and sounds fit in the story, but Lucy Liu does a fantastic job as the voice of Cheng Shih, a fearsome female pirate who lived and pillaged during China’s Qing Dynasty. Some even consider her the most successful pirate in history and tells and narrates an accurate history story of Cheng Shih’s life and the power she used both from the inside and out to mark her place in history.
There are a few things that I would love to see. First, action. With pirate being in the title, if you are expecting some pirate battles or actions, you will not find that here. You are receiving a casual experience that is welcoming to all ages while telling a historical story.I would have liked to have seen some pirate sword fights or other action in the game. Also, when I was on my boat paddling, it would have been interesting to come across some sea life, such as a shark or whale. Second, weather effects. At times when looking at the sky, I was thinking that adding weather effects, such as lightning, thunder, or rain, would really enhance the atmosphere of “The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend.” What do you think? And finally, more historic tales in the future. The developer did a great job with the history and allowed the player to go along for the journey. There is something here and if more historic stories can be told, it can only be a very interesting way for them to be told in VR.
The Prate Queen: A Forgotten Legend shows us how history can be fun in VR and I can see why it has earned the awards it has received. It allows us to learn from an experience in ways that can be beneficial to many while still providing a fun experience for players of all ages. We study history to gain insight into what is right and wrong. However, it often takes multiple repetitions to truly grasp the lessons it offers – to learn from it rather than repeating it.
The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend is out now for Quest 2, 3, & Pro on the Meta Store and Steam VR. A review code was provided.
To learn more about Singer Studios, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Instagram, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I am going to attempt the escape room mode.
